


8. Teasing

by Unicorn (Jensee)



Series: Kinktober 2019 [7]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Abduction, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Kinktober 2019, Manipulating Dreams, Mentions of anthropophagia, More plot than expected!, Open Relationships, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Quanyii has a dirty mouth and it's so fun to write, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), Sort Of, Teasing, Vaginal Fingering, which I think is canon?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2020-12-12 05:43:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20999150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jensee/pseuds/Unicorn
Summary: “I told you to stop coming to the castle. Don’t you have someone else to annoy?”“But I miiiiiss you! You’re always doing things after things and you’re never doing me.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I love Quanyii  
2\. I've decided she has the dirtiest mouth and I'm having the best time with it  
3\. I don't like Caroline that much so she has hatesex even with her girlfriend it seems  
4\. I don't often use extract as summaries, but I loved that line too much  
5\. This is happening before canon, which is a decision I made After writing the first scene of that fic. Don't worry about it, but it's a different queen.  
6\. This is so long and I'm so annoyed because Kinktober 13 is equally ginormous, so I'm posting this as chapters for now to stage off the demons of not doing the thing that I'm doing too much. When it's completed I may rework it so its in one-shot format (assuming it's not Too Long, which, not a given)  
7\. I hope you enjoy and I love youuuuuuu :V
> 
> PS: This is very Lightly edited

Quanyii is just a simple gal, really. When she hasn't spent enough time between her girlfriend's legs, she starts to miss it and go thirsty. And she's pretty sure it's part of the human definition of a relationship that one party should be there to help satisfy the other's needs, so it seems natural Caroline would let her have a little snack from time to time. 

The only problem is that, really, Caroline is kind of a grouch.

"What are you doing here?" is the first thing says Caroline when she sees her.

"You're not even gonna say hello? Rude."

Quanyii tries to swoop in for a kiss, but Caroline keeps her at arms length.

Literally.

"Awww come on..."

"I'm waiting for the Queen Elvira to see me. What is wrong with you?!"

"The Queen?! I love queens! Oh wait is she the cute one with the headscarf? She always looks tired doesn't she? Maybe she needs a good night of sleep _ if you know what I mean _..."

Maybe Caroline isn't entirely human after all. She does make a good impression of a dragon ready to spit acid.

"Go. Away."

"You know, it's not because she's a queen that she can't have fun.” - she shakes a finger at Caroline, who looks ready to strangle her - “If we-”

There is a sound behind the wooden door.

“Quanyii,” grits out Caroline - my, she does get red doesn’t she - “if you don’t leave _ right now _, I swear to the saints-”

“You’ll cut me to pieces and keep my pinky as a sextoy? _ Kinky _.”

Caroline gapes at her, an expression of pure rage on her face.

“Sir Caroline? You can come in.”

Quanyii throws a kiss Caroline’s way.

“Love you. Byyye.”

And she flickers away just as the door creaks open.

_ See _? Caroline’s no fun.

And okay, most of the time, Quanyii would let it slide. Caroline had been pretty explicit in saying they aren’t supposed to be exclusive, and Quanyii doesn’t usually mind finding her fun somewhere else. Caroline is busy and stern and sometimes she lives in the guard’s room that definitely doesn’t allow for privacy (and well, Quanyii wouldn’t mind, exactly, but she can understand why Caroline does). But it’s been nearly a month and she misses seeing the human. Monsters are fun and all, but there’s something to Caroline, when she sheds her austere exterior, and transform into a feline, demanding mistress, when she uses the fire and ferocity that fuels her combative spirit to direct it at Quanyii in another kind of battle.

It’s… well, it keeps Quanyii coming back, doesn’t it? She’s never had a lot of that.

But apparently _ missing _ her knight comes with the territory of great sex and tenacious admiration. And Caroline makes it easy to miss her, because she’s _ never there _.

Quanyii has to take some measures: this can’t go on or she might dry out and become like those witches of the west, all creepy and dehydrated. 

“I told you to stop coming to the castle. Don’t you have someone else to annoy?”

“But I miiiiiss you! You’re always doing _ things _ after _ things _ and you’re never doing _ me _ .” Quanyii takes her chance at plastering herself against Caroline’s back, resting her chin on the human’s shoulder. “ _ Gwaine _ misses you. Don’t you have a little time for _ us _?” She pouts to illustrate her point.

Caroline heartlessly slaps her hands away.

“Stop this. I have a two weeks mission and you better not disrupt it or I might make my knightley duty prevail.”

“Two _ weeks _ ? But it’s been _ so long _ already. Can’t you take a few hours to have a bit of fun with me? Oh, _ oh _! We could go down to the lake before your mission.”

“No.” Caroline throws a hard glare her way. “I don’t have time for your childish demands right now. _ Maybe _ when I’m done with my mission I can spare a day to spend time with Gwaine and you can visit. _ If _ you behave yourself and stop with the incessant _ pestering _.”

Well, that’s… that’s actually quite hurtful.

Quanyii drops her hands and her pout, crossing her arms over her chest. Caroline seems a bit thrown by her suddenly serious demeanor.

“Fine then. I’ll stop _ pestering _ you with my _ childish demands_, _ Sir _ Caroline.”

If Caroline realizes she’s made a mistake, Quanyii has snapped away before she can apologize.

Quanyii goes to her favorite forest with Gwaine to pout. If Caroline doesn’t want to spend time with her, and is going to be_ rude _ about it, she’s going to have all the fun while Caroline’s face gets stuck with her scowl and crunches up like an old apple. Quanyii is certainly not above petty.

The dog has a lot of fun, and Quanyii takes a great deal of time stretching out in the sunlight while thinking of everything Caroline’s missing. It's not as satisfying as she hoped it would be. If Caroline was here, she could at least goad her human into pinning her down, pressing herself against her... Caroline fancies herself as stoic but she never can resist having Quanyii under her. She would just have to act cocky, and to run her hand down those shapely legs…

Quanyii shakes herself. No! Caroline doesn’t deserve her thinking of her stupidly beautiful legs and her surprisingly soft skin, and her _ very _dexterous fingers. She’s not going to think of Caroline and she’s decidedly not going to come looking for her! If the knight wants to be left alone, that’s what she’ll do. And she’ll do it so well Caroline will beg her to come back into her life! There!

Quanyii manages to resist three days.

She tries, she really does, but she’s _ so _ bored. Being a supremely powerful witch is mighty fine, but it does mean there aren’t many tasks Quanyii cannot tackle in a snap of her fingers. Were she more patient, she could probably keep herself from doing it, but, well, she’s not. Patient that is.  
She’s left to go wander around in the monster’s court, but nothing really interesting is happening there, just a vassal being forced under the magister’s thumb, and petty thieves being judged after stealing from the wrong monster. No one there is that interesting, or cute, or has lean but strong arms to throw Quanyii on a bed and have their way with her. No one is as interesting as Caroline, and when she finds herself comparing a cute little nymph to her knight for the tenth time, Quanyii can’t take it anymore.

It’s easy to find Caroline. The very slight scar she still has on her shoulder - so slight Quanyii suspects Caroline never quite realized what it was - serves as a beacon, a tiny part of herself she left Caroline the first time they met. A way to find her again, to link them by the thin threads of the universe.

Her knight is tucked between the two large roots of an ancient tree. She’s mostly hidden by the foliage, sleeping seated, like she always does when she’s on a mission. She looks to have fallen into a deeper sleep than the light slumber she tends to prefer when in enemy territory, and when Quanyii gets a bit closer, she can see why. She has deep circles under her eyes, the kind that are due not to one bad day, but a long series of sleepless, stressful nights.

“You really don’t take care of yourself do you, my little knight?” Quanyii sighs, crouching down in front of her. “You need your little witch to be there to remind you, don’t you? But you won’t even see me.”

Caroline barely twitches. Quanyii sighs and plops herself down besides her. The nook created by the roots is however pretty tight, and in doing so, Quanyii falls into Carolie quite a bit more heavily than she intended. She yelps in surprise at feeling herself landing half on top of her knight, and Caroline herself is knocked into the bark of the tree as a result. Not too strongly, but enough that her eyes start to flutter open.

“Oh oh.”

Quanyii suddenly remembers the actual words they exchanged last time they saw each other. Caroline will _ not _ be happy to find she followed her in the end.

“Wh... Quanyii?”

The witch’s eyes widen in surprise at the soft, sleepy eyes Caroline has opened. Her voice is an equally soft whisper: she seems to be barely awake.

Quanyii has a sudden, brilliant idea.

“Hello darling.” she says, with a smile like she was just waiting for Caroline to get up from a nap, rather than being caught while she was trying not to wake her up. With a wave of her fingers, she make the woods around her seem a bit different: the lines more blurry, the light a bit dimmer. In the edges of her vision, dancing lights draw shapeless forms, creating an eerie atmosphere on her own face.

Caroline squints at the illusion, her expression slack compared to her usual sharp frown.

“Why are you here? Didn’t I tell-”

She looks so tired, Quanyii is starting to wonder if her slumber is completely natural. But when she looks, nothing from Caroline’s face or aura seems amiss. So she doesn’t feel too bad in taking advantage of the situation.

“Here? What do you mean?”

“What? The woo- oh. Am I dreaming?”

Quanyii smiles, trying to make it sweet instead of triumphant. It is possible she does not succeeds, but her little human in way too out of it to notice.

“I don’t know, are you?” She gets closer yet, and her cheek brushes against Caroline. “Are you dreaming about me, my little knight? Do you miss me?”

Whatever Caroline says next, it’s lost between Quanyii’s lips. 

She doesn't push. Caroline may be outside of it, but she's sure to wake up if Quanyii starts actually kissing her like she wants to. 

So instead she simply savours the feeling of the lips she missed against hers and nips oh so gently at Caroline before drawing back.

"Do you miss your little witch, my little knight ?" she whispers against Caroline's throat, and deposits a series of butterfly kisses there. It seems the human is just out of it enough that she doesn't react much, simply leaning into the touch with mumbled, unintelligible words. 

It's enough that when Quanyii draws back, her knight tries to follow, a half formed, unconscious movement that is quickly aborted. But it's there. 

Quanyii swoops in for another kiss, her hand coming to lightly cup Caroline's face. She's a bit more thorough this time, a bit rougher, pushing some of Caroline's drowsiness away. And just as she feels Caroline starting to respond, as she feels her starting to wake up, she draws back, just enough to detach their lips.

"Time to wake up, Caroline." she whispers against her knight’s mouth.

Then she bites down.

Caroline wakes up suddenly, eyes wide open.

“Quanyii?” she asks, quietly into the night.

From behind a tree, the witch smiles. This plan is off to a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a porny twitter if you want the news about my writing this stuff -> @thepanhornicorn. They're still posted on tumblr same way as before bc lol I do Not care about that website.


	2. Chapter 2

Quanyii doesn't try to infiltrate any more of Caroline's dreams. It's not one of her specialities when it comes to magic and Caroline is smart enough that she would just figure it out and ruin all her fun.

Instead, she spies on Caroline and wait for all the opportunities she can get. It seems her knight has been sent on the trail of some beast dwelling in a vast territory, making it quite hard to find. This is perfect for Quanyii, because it means Caroline spends quite a lot of time scouting the woods, all alone. So to keep herself on her knight's mind, she asks the wind to carry her usual scent and watches as Caroline frowns and wonders if the familiar perfume is real or if she's letting her imagination run from her.  
She sends the wind and the flowers to gently brush her knight's nape as she would, and makes sure to bend the friendliest trees she can find in the evocative shapes of women so they catch the corner of Caroline’s eyes.

It’s fair to say, that after three days of constant barely-there titillations, Caroline is thoroughly frustrated. The fact that she barely made any progress in her investigation probably doesn’t help.

As it turns out, even someone as serious as Caroline doesn't bother packing food for more than a week, and the knight seemingly decides to spend the kingdom money on supplies at the closest town and throws in a couple night at their local inn to take a break from the forest and gather some intelligence among the townspeople.

It's a small little town, pretty charming if you can ignore the smell, and most of all, soooo boring. Apart from the inn doubling as a tavern Caroline is staying at, the only place to socialize is a tiny chapel dedicated to two or three saints. It's no wonder that the innkeeper's daughter - a beautiful, blond twenty something, too smart to have any interest in the farm boys that try to sweet talk her when she serves them their beer- takes interest in a knight from the city. 

Honestly, Quanyii doesn’t blame her. She doesn’t even blame Caroline for encouraging her interest. This kind of thing is part of their arrangement and she is nothing if not wholly supportive of her little knight having fun. Usually.

Usually Quanyii would smile and laugh and ask Caroline to tell her how it went after. Usually she wouldn’t mind.

But today? Today Caroline has been blowing her off for _ over a month _ because she’s reportedly too busy to grant Quanyii any fun, and the moment she sees a young little thing from buttfuck nowhere she’s rearing to go?!

Quanyii is not mad. _ She’s not _. But she’s not about to let Caroline sabotage her plan like this.

The girl is quite easy to catch, which comes as no surprise. While Quanyii will be the first to call Caroline charming, it’s quite obvious the main reason for the girl’s interest is an attraction to exotism and power. 

And Caroline is hardly the only one to have those in spades.

She has the girl wrapped around her little finger in less than an hour, to the very obvious annoyance of one knight fuming in the corner. She’s wearing a glamour so Caroline doesn’t know it’s her, and pretends to be a merchant coming back from the market in one of the bigger town. It’s easy to produce some monster-made silk, much thinner than whatever humans can produce, and offer the girl a delicate-looking but extremely resistant scarf, that would compliment her refreshing beauty. The girl blushes and smiles, noble knight forgotten, and lets herself be drawn into a corner where Quanyii _ knows _ Caroline will be able to find them.

And find them she does. Quanyii has let the girl start to undress her so the shirt she’s wearing is sliding off her arm, revealing the swell of her breast over her bodice, and she has taken hold of one of her thighs, pushing back her dress so it reveals her leg as it wraps around Quanyii’s waist.

Caroline tries to ignore them with a huff, but just as she’s passing, Quanyii makes her young catch moan by biting gently into her bottom lip, and she hears Caroline’s steps falter. She makes sure to make eye contact when she pushes the girl’s head toward her throat, sending her little knight a heated, triumphant glare as she draws her prey even closer.

Caroline looks like she’s seething at being taunted in this way, which is just perfect.

Quanyii tips the head of the girl toward her for a gentle peck. Her eyes are glazed over with lust: it makes her even prettier. Maybe Quanyii will stop from time to time to visit her once this is all over.

“Maybe you could show me my room, Saana?” she says, in a sweet voice that promises an even sweeter night. The girl nods, and with a last smile Caroline’s way, Quanyii follows her up the stairs.

The girl keeps on being sweet and eager once they’re in the room that has been set out for Quanyii, and she moans prettily when the witch actually starts working on her. By the doing the witch is done with her, she's fallen asleep with her head curled against Quanyii's shoulder, her hair spilled over the pillow like a princess straight out of a fairy tale. She's breathing deeply, and Quanyii herself is starting to doze, when a sharp but polite knock raps against her door.

She makes sure to have her shirt wide open - on the verge of falling off - and her slit skirt showing her leg up to her thigh, when she opens the door. 

Caroline doesn't look happy to see her, but her eyes still flick up and down her body, making Quanyii smile.

“Good evening, Sir knight, how can I help you tonight?”

Caroline scowls.

“What are you doing here, Quanyii? I thought I told you _ not _to follow me.”

Well, shoot. Quanyii has hoped to have a bit more fun with this. She drops her glamour, but not her lascivious clothes, and crosses her arms over her chest.

“_ I _thought you didn’t have any time to have fun.”

A flicker of something, maybe guilt, passes over Caroline’s eyes, but it quickly disappears into a deeper scowl.

“That’s not any of your business. It was _ you _ in the woods, wasn’t it? I _ knew _I wasn’t imagining it.”

There is a voice behind Quanyii - a soft, sleepy call coming from the bedroom. She closes the door quietly, and Caroline silently takes holds of her hand to lead her away, into another door : Caroline’s room.

“Why did you follow me? I thought I told you I had official business!”

“You’ve had official business for more than a month! And that doesn’t seem to stop you from fooling around with the innkeeper!”

“Oh, because you’re one to talk! Are you going to tell me you made flower crowns in here?”

“What if I did? At least I know how to have fun!”

“You don’t know anything _ but _how to have fun! You don’t take anything seriously!”

“At least _ I _don’t make promises I can’t keep!”

Caroline kisses her.

They fall back against the door and Quanyii moans under Caroline’s mouth. Her little knight devours her mouth like she’s attacking it, like she's conquering a new territory, with her lips as the troops and her tongue as the spear leading the charge.

“Saints, you’re infuriating.” She pants against Quanyii’s mouth, trailing a path of burning kisses down the witch’s jaw.

“You’re one to talk.”

Caroline’s hands travel easily under Quanyii loose clothes. She traces the path of her curves, trailing up her waist and finding her breast. She’s gentle but possessive, and Quanyii nearly loses herself in their embrace, leaning into her knight like a fruit inevitably falling to the ground. She starts to unbuckle Caroline’s outerwear as well, letting the reinforced jacket fall to the ground to get access to her knight’s skin. That has Caroline letting out a satisfied hum, and Quanyii giggles when her knight hoists her up to bring her legs around her.

Caroline throws her on the bed, and gets rid of her undershirt before crawling over Quanyii and claiming her lips once again.

She sighs into the kiss, letting herself enjoy the feeling of her human weighing down on her, straddling her, letting her hands run down her scarred skin, up her arms and down her back, over the threshold of her heavy pants. When she manages to rid Caroline of the garnment, the knight presses down on her, their legs tangling and brushing against one another, in a sweet, heated dance.

“You did miss me, then.” Murmurs Quanyii when she feels a eager hand trace a path up her inner thigh.

Caroline scoffs.

“Hardly. For me to miss you’d have to actually be gone. I can’t turn a corner without you being around it.”

Quanyii scowls. Caroline hadn’t learn anything, had she?

“Was the girl any good?” Asks Caroline with a devious little smile, her fingers feeling the leftover wetness between Quanyii’s legs.

“She was sweet. Very… enthusiastic. Made the most beautiful sounds. You should have heard her.”

“Oh, but I _ did _. You’re not what I would call discreet, you know.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” She tugs Caroline down for another kiss, using just enough teeth and tongue that her little knight gets lost in it. It’s easy enough to flip her when Caroline lets her guard down. It only makes the knight laugh.

“You’re feisty tonight, aren’t you? Was the girl _ only _ enthusiastic?”

“What can I say? _ I _ missed you.”

She kisses Caroline again before she can get another word in edgewise, and loses no time circling Caroline’s clit with her free hand, taking care not to actually rub directly where her knight wants her most. Caroline groans and she feels slick coating her fingers, the hands on her body tightening their grip and urging her closer.

“Quanyii,” Caroline mumbles when she releases her mouth, and she doesn’t resist giving in to kiss her knight longer. It’s so very tempting to let this play out, to get swept up Caroline’s strong arms and find rest her comfort in her warm body.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Caroline?” she murmurs against her knight’s lip.

She has a plan.

“Come back here.” Caroline tries to draw her back in, bucking her hips to get Quanyii to actually finger her. But Quanyii locks her elbow and resist her lover’s gravity.

“I don’t think I will.” Caroline opens her eyes with surprise, and bucks up automatically in the hand finally pushing against her clit.

“Wha-”

“I _ think _, my little knight, that you still need to be taught a lesson.”

Sudden understanding dawns on Caroline’s face.

“Quan-”

Quanyii is gone before she can finish saying her name.

Alone in the inn’s bedroom, almost entirely naked and frustratingly horny, Caroline lets her head fall back on the mattress.

“_ Dammit _.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quanyii is Evil and I Love her

Now that she knows what she’s looking for, it doesn’t take too long for Caroline to notice her.

“Quanyii,” she says, with a roll of her eyes when she catches herself looking at a tree that resemble very closely a woman with coyly crossed legs “I know you’re here.”

“_ Quanyii _ ,” the witch parrots from a high branch, “ _ I know you’re here _.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Oh am I? At least _ I _got laid.” Caroline huffs, but her eyes follow the movement of Quanyii uncrossing and crossing her legs again. “Feeling sorry yet?”

“You’re joking, aren’t you? Why should _ I _be sorry when you made an annoyance of yourself and followed me just to bother me?”

And she has the _ gal _to turn around.

Quanyii snaps in front of her.

“What?! You ignore me for a month-”

“Quanyii I am on a mission! I am _ doing my job _ , so stop _ distracting _me!”

Well, maybe Caroline does have… some kind of valid point. Which is the only reason Quanyii lets her brush past her and resume following the path.

“And stop _ following _ me!”

Ah! Cute that her knight thinks she is _ that _reasonable.

Even without Quanyii messing with her, Caroline doesn’t seem to be making much headway. She looks closely at the ground, and examines every tree they can find for any trace of the beast plaguing the country, but every trail she finds either goes cold after a few meters, or leads to some other animal’s nest, that couldn’t be mistaken for any actually magically gifted or unnatural beast.

“What is this thing, anyway?” Asks Quanyii when she gets bored of looking at trees after trees after trees _ after trees _… forest just don’t have that much imagination do they?

Caroline barely looks at her when she responds, because apparently _ bear poop _ is more interesting than a beautiful witch to her.

“We don’t quite know. It’s big, and it’s not active as much in winter as it is in the summer, so it may be a hibernating kind of creature. So far, we think it to be responsible for the disappearing of a dozen persons, most of them young and healthy, and from what information I gathered at the village, it may have snatched three more victims.” She gets up from her crouch, a frown on her face as she looks ahead to the inside of the darkening forest. Like this, she looks every bit the knight she is. It’s a good look on her. “Since we found no trace of the victim, the main theory is that it’s taking them to some kind of lair, and, most likely, eating them.”

Well. That’s grim.

“Sounds like something that would leave a trace.”

“I would certainly think so, and I’m going to find it.”

“Are you sure? If you haven’t found it yet-”

“Well maybe I would if you stopped distracting me like I asked you to. Why are you even here?”

What a question. Quanyii knows her little knight is stressed out and annoyed at not being able to finally finish her job, but…

“You don’t have to be so mean about it.”

That makes Caroline look at her at last.

“Quanyii…”

“Do you really want me to go?”

She doesn’t quite mean to make the question sound so loaded, but at the very least, it gets Caroline’s attention. She takes the witch’s hand in hers. Quanyii lets her, even though she’s pretty sure Caroline still has poop on her fingers. 

“No.” She sighs, sounding tired more than exasperated this time. “I just… want to be done. Maybe, _ just maybe _” - she makes a face and Quanyii has to snort - “you were right, and I need a bit of a break.”

She raises Quanyii’s hand to her lips, and _ damn _but she can be charming when she wants to.

"Would you help me?" Caroline uses her grip on her hand to gently bring her closer to her side. "You could probably find it, if you want, couldn't you? And then we could go home."

Ooooh she's good. She's _ really _good. Quanyii is really, tempted to give in...

And she does, when Caroline kisses her. It's soft and gentle, warm like the lips of the young innkeeper hadn't been. It's an embrace Quanyii wants to melt into. But of course, Caroline pulls away as soon as she tries to do so, soothing her pout with a small peck and a impish smile.

"What do you say?"

"I find the beast and you take me home?" Quanyii asks, a smile burgeoning on her lips easily.

Caroline hums an agreement, her hands coming around Quanyii's hips to bring her closer.

Quanyii herself takes hold of her little night's jaw to steal another kiss.

"And how are you going to convince me, darling?"

Caroline plays with a stray strand of hair.

"Oh, I don't know... Do you want to make a suggestion?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find something."

Caroline's smile is an impish, wicked thing, and she kisses Quanyii again, much hungrier, much more sensual this time. Quanyii lets herself be pushed until her back meets the bark of a tree and Caroline pins her down as her mouth travel to her throat, leaving a blazing trail of passion in her wake.

Caroline looks good on her knees, looking up with her little, confident smile. Quyanii wonders how close this is to what Caroline’s queen sees when her knights bow at her feet. She can barely imagine the rush that would be, if it comes even close. But then again, does Caroline really ever kneel for anyone but her? In the forms maybe, but really, in spirit, Caroline’s all _ hers _. And that means, really, that Quanyii doesn’t need to be a queen.

Caroline is good with her tongue. Very good, and she knows it, too, sending Quanyii smug little glances as she makes her shivers and melt. She tries to grasp her hair between her fingers, but the small strands offer her no purchase as Caroline pushes her tongue hard against her clit.

_ Fuck _, she'd missed that mouth.

She pulls at Caroline's collar to bring her back up once she can feel her legs again, and kisses her knight fiercely, pushing her hand into Caroline’s pants to find her wet and waiting.

“Is there maybe something else you want to say to convince me, darling?”

Caroline groans and bucks into her fingers, trying to chase the pressure Quanyii is only barely providing.

“Something else?”

“Yes.” She pushes down and Caroline sucks in a breath. “Something like… an apology.”

“Really? Are you still on that? Don’t you think you’re overdoing it, um?” Caroline kisses her again, her hips pressing back against Quanyii to try and get some friction.

She allows it for a few seconds before she takes her hand back.

Caroline makes a sound displeasure, like she’s about to say something.

“Actually,” Quanyii interrupts, “absentmindedly” bringing her fingers wet with Caroline’s slick to her mouth, “I think I remember something.”

“What?” Caroline asks, her voice tight as she watches Quanyii lick her index clean.

“Yeah… I have _ something _ to do.”

“_ What? _”

“_ Yeah! _ Actually, it _ really _ can’t wait. I have to do it _ right now _!”

“Quanyii-”

“Sorry, darling!” She gives Caroline, who looks ready to absolutely tear her to pieces, her most winning smile. “I’ll see you at home, alright?”

“Wait a minute, you-”

Quanyii disappears with a laugh, her earing staying just long enough to hear Caroline let out a yell of frustration.

* * *

When Caroline has calmed down from swearing and taken out all her frustration and pent up energy on one poor, miserable looking tree, night has nearly fallen and it’s getting dark.

With a last few choice words for Quanyii - and all the better if the witch is watching because Caroline does _ not _ feel gracious right now - she sighs and begins setting up camp for the night, building up a small fire to make some embers and keep the night to a bearable temperature.

She’s about to set fire to her little pile of woods when a shuffling sound is heard, something that is _ not _coming from the leaves whispering into the wind.

Caroline, very slowly, very quietly, takes hold of her sword.

There is no other sound to be heard.

Not for another long, endless minutes.

Silently, Caroline draws her sword, and pivots on herself: scanning the woods all around her; straining her ears to hear any sound.

“Quanyii?”

No response.

“Quanyii, if that’s you I swear to the saints I won’t fall for it this time!”

The forest stays silent, and Caroline sighs, annoyed. It was probably some kind of bird or owl, and her distraction mislead her. She is _ so _ tired of this mission.

There is another sound, much closer. But before she can react, something hard and heavy cracks over her head, and Caroline’s vision goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed! final chapter to be posted on november 12th!


	4. Chapter 4

Caroline wakes up to the sound of rumble being moved. Her training gives her the presence of mind not to move right away, and she controls her breathing so it will seem to whatever creature is nearby that she’s still unconscious. It doesn’t take long for the sounds, accompanied by big puffs of hair, to get muted, then to stop, and only then does she tentatively open her eyes.

She is in a rather large cavern, barely illuminated by the cracks in some rocks blocking its entryway. They look heavy. Much heavier than Caroline herself would be able to move on her own. Immediately, that fact leads her to two conclusions: the creature that has her trapped is much bigger than she had accounted for; and, no matter what she does, she won’t be able to escape this place without the beast moving the blocks for her in some way or another.

Which would already be a problem if she wasn’t tied by viciously tight ropes.

Caroline takes the time to breath in and out once. Then, she gets to work.

It’s not the first time she’s been in a dire situation. In fact, this isn’t even remotely close to the direst situation she’s been through yet. She scans the room as she arches slowly to reach the small dagger in her boot. She’d be stupid not to be prepared for this kind of predicament, and rare are the beasts that think enough to pat down their prey. The rocky floor of the cavern is littered with off-white objects: bones.

Human bones.

Of course.

There doesn’t seem to be any other opening than the one she just heard being closed, and the space seems to be devoid of anything like tools, just some soft grass and plants dumped into a corner that probably serves as some kind of bed.

“Hello?” she asks, just loud enough that anyone in the cave could probably hear her.

If anybody is still alive, they don’t respond to her. She just hopes she won’t have to find the mutilated corpse of any of the victims.

This beast may be mostly stupid or lack ingenuity, but it apparently knows how to tie its knots particularly well. That’s a bit strange, but mostly, at the moment, extremely inconvenient. Caroline bends as far backwards as she can, but the bondage only allows her to brush the hilt of her blade, and she has to grit her teeth against the effort.

How much time does she have until the beast return and she’s left without defense for it to bang her head against a rock and kill her? Would Quanyii find her before then if she can’t untie herself?

Saints, if she dies here, she doesn’t want Quanyii to be the one to find her corpse. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

She feels her shoulders crack painfully, but the dagger’s hilt is suddenly in between her index and forefinger. Caroline lets herself smile. There’s hope yet.

* * *

It’s hard to say how long she’s been unconscious - maybe a whole night, if the light coming from the few small openings is to be taken as a clue - and even harder to say how long it takes her to unbound herself. By her own estimation, it took her a good twenty minutes to properly start to saw the rope holding her hands together, and it’s slow going. With the angle at which she was tied, she can only keep minimum pressure on the rope, and despite her carefulness, the blade slips away from her sweaty fingers twice, making her lose another good ten minutes each time. Every minute brings her closer to being free, but all the same she keeps her ears alert, waiting for any sound to indicate the return of the man eating beast.

She’s almost managed to free her hands - she can feel the rope hanging on to its last threads, so thin it almost feels like she could rip it apart - when there’s a sound resonating outside the cavern. Caroline instantly knows what it is. It’s a rumbling, heaving sound, and the faint light entering the cavern is shifting, a shadow passing over the threads of light and plunging the cave in intermittent darkness.

The monster is back.

And she’s still unable to defend herself.

She curses to the saints from the north to the south and tries to quicken the awkward movements of her hands behind her back. She forces her breath to stay even, her fingers to stay firm and precise. She can’t start panicking and getting sloppy now.

She can feel the fiber start to come apart under her knife… just a moment more, just one slash across it and-

The rope comes loose.

A big rock is pushed away from the blocked entrance, spilling light into the cavern.

There’s still the rope around her ankles. Getting the dagger to cut into it is much easier but it’s thick, and not nearly as fast as Careline would like. She can see the head of the monster now, a head that looks oversized and affixed directly to the creature’s shoulder, without a neck. Even from here, Caroline can see its beady eyes and its large mouth in a snout like figure. It’s a face straight out of a nightmare.

The creature uses its upper limbs with some precision, moving the heavy boulders out of the way, but it doesn’t seem to be as proficient with its hands as a human would be.

The last boulder is set aside, and the monster slither into the den, looking straight at Caroline.

She jumps to her feet, the rope just cut loose enough that she doesn’t stumble.

“Back off, beast” she growls, her dagger in front of her and ready to strike. “You’ve made a terrible mistake attacking a Knight of the Realms.”

The monster breathes and his throat rattles horribly.

“Knight” it seems to say, the words garbled and near unrecognizable.

“That’s right, a Knight. And the one to drag you to your tomb.”

She anchors herself to the ground, feeling none of the bravado she’s projecting outwardly. The beast is big, and the way it moves suggest it is made for bursts of speed Caroline certainly can’t match. If it charges at her, she’ll only get the chance to avoid the attack, and her short blade doesn’t offer her a lot of openings that wouldn’t give the monster ample time to maim her as well.

Her best chance is to bait the monster into making a mistake.

That seems feasible.

“So what,” she says, weaving her arms and leaning towards the beast, careful not to actually breach any of the distance between the two of them, “Am I too scary for you? Not the same when you can’t kidnap defenseless civilians, is it? Come on! Come at me!”

She doesn’t have to wait long. She’s barely finished speaking that the beast charges her. She sets her feet and the ground, and, at the last minute, jumps to the side.

The monster barrels straight ahead.

But as he passes near her, it manages to catch the loose rope still looped around her ankle.

Caroline goes down with a cry, and the beast turns around, looking big and vicious. It’s paw-like hand slams over Caroline’s foot and she cries out in pain.

The monster keeps pressure over her ankle, pushing down on it as it prowls closer. Caroline forces herself to stay calm despite the wide mouth full of teeth over her. She threatens the beast with her blade, making it recoils, and manages to kick the offending paw off herself, scrambling away as soon as her limb is free.

It hurts, though, and she grit her teeth as the both of them get up and pain curses through her whole leg. Her ankle is probably sprained, maybe even broken, and she definitely won’t be able to sidestep the monster again. If it charges her once more, she’s done for.

She looks at the beast’s gaping mouth, at its needle like teeth, oozing a green liquid.

She won’t be able to escape this cave anyway. She can’t even walk properly, let alone run, there’s no chance she’ll outpace this monster.

This is going to suck.

“Sorry Quanyii,” she murmurs as she charges the monster, hobbling as fast as she can.

It roars, and lunges for her as well, but she’s ready for it, and she manages to keep her ground when it collide into her, mouth open.

She cries out in pain when the beast’s teeth sink into her arm, feeling her own flesh speared with a thousand lopsided blades. But she doesn’t hesitate, and plunges her blade into the monster’s left eyes, pushing as hard as she can.

The beast roars and pushes her down on the ground, its mouth snapping in the air to try and bite her again. Caroline answer with a roar of her own and withdraw her arm to stab the monster again. It gets her side on her third strike, and pain erupts in her abdomen again. She gathers her strength for a final stab into the monster, and she can feel its hold on her getting slack, its form slumping heavily against on her.

The monster stops making any sound and Caroline lets her blade fall from her trembling fingers.

She can feel warm blood dripping on her from the beast and pooling under her: it’s a lot of blood. Even if she manages to crawl out from under the beast, she doubts she could manage to go very far. She knows she should give it a try, anyway, but her vision is already blurry and she can already feel her limbs getting numb and cold.

“Well- Caroline?!”

She hopes Quanyii doesn’t get too mad at her.

The dark envelops her.


End file.
